The Week Ahead…

This week’s programming is designed with newcomers in mind, folks new to CrossFit and CrossFit For Glory. As such, you won’t see movements like pistols, muscle-ups, or endless “chipper” workouts. This week is focused on foundational squat, hinge, push, pull, carry, and gait (running) movements with a focus on the quality of movement, consistency of application of those movements, and the importance of pacing and recovery.
I’ve been with CrossFit For Glory since almost the beginning and have observed a bias in every direction you can imagine, some like it heavy and short, others like myself like long chippers for example. I’ve also observed that 80% of the folks in our little community are “broke”, myself included. And by broke I mean everything from injury to lifestyle and everything in between. We need far more work on foundational functional movement than on complex compound movement. I don’t discount any of those, I am a big fan of muscle ups, snatch, and handstand walks. I am also an advocate of “program for the best, scale for the rest.” Discovery learning is frustrating and a path to injury without the watchful eye of a coach. If you have the desire to advance your skills, seek out someone with the experience to teach you. Take some weight off the bar and focus on the movement. Ask your coaches about private coaching lessons to work on a skill, mobility, Olympic lift, upcoming competition or sports specific conditioning or whatever your goal may be. I promise that the private lessons will get you the results you are looking for beyond the one-hour CrossFit session you normally attending.
Veteran CrossFitters shouldn’t be disappointed, there is plenty of strength work, couplets and triplets, and variety to test your metabolic pathways and 10 physical skills. I did not include a skill or strength workout to supplement the daily workout as we normally see programed. This will be a hard thing for many people to get their head around – you can have volume or you can have intensity, but you can’t have both for long before performance begins to suffer. You don’t always need more training, you need quality, consistency, and recovery with an emphasis on recovery in the training time available.
It’s true that intensity is the variable most conducive to adaptation. That doesn’t mean you should expect “Hero” or benchmark workouts, or endless sessions of burpees day after day to make your training effective. Nor should you red-line every workout with 100% physical effort. Intensity is a very personal measure of effort. I can’t program that for you. What I can do is offer some coaching advice. My advice is to set your sights on about a 70% effort every day. Modulate your effort across the week so you have the energy to show up every day. Stay Fresh. If you show up Monday morning feeling strong, then go for it. Just don’t try to out train your recovery ability. Follow a 90-100% effort with a few at 60-70% effort. It’s your work capacity over time that matters. If, for whatever reason, your training begins to drop because of work, school, family stress, or illness, don’t make your first return effort a herculean effort to make up for lost time. Ease back into it.
One last word on consistency. I programmed five minutes of planks every day. Why? Because everything is a plank! Think Hollow and Arch! Do yourself a favor: if you are taking CFG Barbell club, follow the plank program. I guarantee noticeable improvement in all your other movements.

Show up, have fun, stay fresh, and share your experience the CFG blog!
Best regards,
Coach Mark
 

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For Monday’s 8/3/15 WOD, Click Here

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